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POLITICO 44

Those were some of the signs protesters held this weekend in the demonstrations centered in downtown Manhattan — but also sprawled out across the country.

Republicans and Democrats would do well to pay attention to who these people are and what they want. After all, these protesters have a 54 percent approval rating — more popular than either political party.

Despite deep suspicions on the right, Occupy Wall Street is not a left-wing electoral force, and the culture of the occupiers is one that profoundly distrusts electoral politics. There were no Obama signs — in fact, no signs supportive of either party.

There’s a reason this movement is popular. While the Democrats and the Republicans are both in election mode for 2012, Occupy Wall Street has successfully argued that America is in a national crisis that electoral politics is unlikely to resolve.

The stats are dismal. Median income dropped 7 percent from 2009 to 2011, during a putative “recovery.” A majority of Americans believe that we will see another Lehman Brothers -style financial meltdown — giving an implicit thumbs down to the Dodd-Frank bill’s promise of preventing another financial crisis.

Americans are increasingly desperate. You see that in the protesters’ major themes — donating, serving and preparing food for all hungry people who want it. The occupiers prepare food in makeshift kitchens, while local farms and individuals send canned and fresh food. Supporters pay for pizzas through a cellphone texting system, so pizzas are regularly passed around to anyone who wants a slice, including the homeless and the destitute. The occupiers are by and large educated, and many are middle class or part of the formerly middle class.

But the food distribution isn’t just a community-building effort, the occupiers are simply feeding hungry people. Right now, 19 percent of Americans say they couldn’t afford food for themselves or someone in their family at some point over the past 12 months. This is a major increase from the 9 percent who said this in 2008. For context, in China, whose per capita income is a 10th of ours, that number is 6 percent.

For now, to the extent that occupiers have policy demands, they are mild — largely aimed at limiting the power of corporations and money in our society and politics. According to the signs they carried to Times Square on Saturday, they want a restoration of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, limiting the financial role of banks; the public financing of elections; taxing of large corporations, prosecution of some bankers, health care reforms and an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s basic process liberalism, and most of the demands written on protester signs could easily be matched to a corresponding bill introduced into the most recent Congress — most of which could not pass both houses.

But if they don’t believe voting will matter, then what is their theory of change? It is to get America to admit to itself that it is in a depression and that its political institutions have lost the allegiance of the public. And those institutions, through mass arrests, are proving the case.

Either party could co-opt this movement, simply by beginning to solve the problems faced by ordinary Americans. The current options being considered aren’t promising. The American Jobs Act, though it could raise aggregate demand somewhat, speaks volumes for its lack of ambition and its undercutting of Social Security. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s jobs program, which appears to be a form of military Keynesianism leading to a war with Iran, seems as misguided and confused as the policies that drew the world into World War I.

Despite deep suspicions on the right, Occupy Wall Street is not a left-wing electoral force, and the culture of the occupiers is one that profoundly distrusts electoral politics. There were no Obama signs — in fact, no signs supportive of either party.

There’s a reason this movement is popular. While the Democrats and the Republicans are both in election mode for 2012, Occupy Wall Street has successfully argued that America is in a national crisis that electoral politics is unlikely to resolve.

OUR government has been sold.

There is criminal fraud that has taken place on Wall Street and and in the halls of Congress all covered up by the symbiotic relationship between BIG MONEY and elected representatives in Washington.

The BIG MONEY needs favorable legislation to continue to cheat, and the elected representatives need BIG MONEY to get elected.

It is that symbiotic relationship that is the core factor in the failure of OUR government.

If Obama is going to adopt the vapid populism of the OWS crowd while embracing a narrative that continues to be politically divisive as his 2012 re-election strategy - then one must understand that Obama and the Progressives have abandoned the traditional vision of America for some darker and deconstructed version that only Hugo Chavez would call “transformational.”

use my keyboard to counter the mindless blather of those who are either part of the problem, or who are just willfully ignorant, YOU for an example.

No excuse. You want to keep what YOU consider what is good with "evil" corporations and ruin the rest. Without those evil corporations, no one would be able to read your mindless blather. The city of New york has no mayor. If they had one, there would be cell phone and wi-fi jammers on every corner. The little swine will go back to mommie when the freezing weather arrives.

Any group of people that want to redistribute the wealth are LEFT-WINGERS. As for Egypt tactics? We all see how well that protest worked. The protesters didn't know what they wanted beyond the leader stepping down. They're still fighting.

Occupy Wall Street is a protest against greed. Americans have awakened to the fact that the disparity between the rich and the poor has become obscene. It’s instructive to follow the money trail. In 2008 a worldwide recession was caused by the greed of bankers, (disproportionately Jewish), who turned our financial system into a racket reaping mega-profits until their Ponzi Scheme collapsed. Then they blackmailed us by threatening the Great Depression if taxpayers didn’t bail them out, following which, without missing a beat, the bankers returned to business as usual rewarding themselves with mammoth salaries and bonuses. This money then is used to bribe politicians to keep their tax rates unfairly low and to prevent the financial regulations necessary to prevent a repeat performance of taxpayer looting. Simultaneously, politicians are bribed with campaign cash to follow the dictates of the ultra-rich Israel Lobby (including the New York money people). This involves dragging America into endless bankrupting unnecessary wars to benefit Israeli expansionism, alienating the Arab/Muslim world. Our prostituted politicians care not that bankruptcy and world alienation are against our national security interest. Israel could make peace with the Arab/Muslim world except for its insatiable greed for stolen Arab land. Our next War for the Jews is scheduled to be with Iran. Keeping Americans poor ensures a steady flow of military recruits. The politicians’ campaign cash is then mostly recycled back to the Jew-controlled media for political ads. (This is why the media has such an ecstatic obsession with amounts of money individual politicians raise. It’s their favorite topic.)

The occupiers can deny they are tools of the administration all they want but as long as they protest the symptom rather than the disease they will be nothing more than tools for the administration.

If they want to prove they really care about this country and prove their cause is truely noble then they need to set up camp outside of the US Capital and the White House. Until then they will be viewed by the 54% that will elect a new POTUS as nothing more than a bunch of misguided tools of the Obama administration.

There has been some talk lately about the occupier's protest on wall street being the American Spring.

If the war in Iraq hadn't occured and our brave men and women hadn't put their lives on the line to capture Sadam and we hadn't turned him over to those he had oppressed for 40 years and allowed them (his own peers) to try and execute him there would be no Arab Spring. There would have been no Eygyptians overthrowing their government. There would be no movement toward democracy in the middle east.

If you believe otherwise you weren't paying attention.

So if you want to be considered as a movement that equates itself with the Arab Spring you will need to capture and try the very leader that has oppressed you by bailingout his buddies, the very culprits that ruined our economy. the very reprobates that are currently spending your future for his own political gain.

Zuccoti Ppark, the home base of the OWS movement is owned by Brookfield Properties. Mayor Bloombergs girlfriend is on the board of directors for Brookfield. Leon Paneta, Obama's transition manager has a sister that is a lobbyist for Brookfield's solar power branch. Brookfield received a $135.8 million loan guarantee from Obama's Energy Department.

Last month, the grant was finalized to build the 99 megawatt Granite Reliable wind project in New Hampshire's Coos County, making it the state's largest wind plant.

Seventy-five percent of the new wind project is owned by BAIF Granite Holdings, which was created earlier this year by Brookfield Renewable Power, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management of New York.

Since 2009, Brookfield has been represented by the lobby firm Heather Podesta and Partners, LLC.